The Cookie Monster
by geraldine01
Summary: Little Johnny needs a gun because he is sure that there is a monster under his bed. Not exactly a kidfic. Western, family, touch of horror, and then there's Mrs. O in the kitchen...
1. Chapter 1

Fandom: Lancer  
Rating: PG - or T  
Genre: family, gen, kidfic, AU, horror  
Warnings: none

Written: March 2008, 4400 words, 2 chapters

Note: As you can see, I wrote this a few years ago, but I have dusted it off and made some minor edits. I hope you enjoy it!

THE COOKIE MONSTER - CHAPTER 1  
by Geraldine

"Pa?" Johnny looked up at his father, but when the tall man didn't respond, he tugged at his corduroy jacket to get his attention. "Pa?" Johnny craned his neck to see the faces of the two men who were in the middle of a conversation.

Murdoch Lancer was talking to Slim, a new wrangler, and wasn't paying any attention to his own son. "Paul won't be back until tomorrow, most likely, but I want that holding pen to be secure before dark. Understood?"

His father was using that voice again - the one he used when he was being the Boss. The tone he used when he was mad at his boys was sort of the same, but not quite. That one was gruff, with an underlying tone that gave warning of an impending punishment. Johnny wondered if the ranch hand was going to be whomped with a switch if he didn't do exactly what Pa told him to do.

Slim touched the brim of his battered cowboy hat. "Yessir, Mr. Lancer."

That was when Pa nodded, as if he was done with the man. Johnny knew his father would wait for the job to be completed before showing he was satisfied. Only when the ranch hand walked briskly away to get right on the task, did Pa finally look down at his small son from a great height. "And what do you want, young man?" He sounded mean but he was only fooling, Johnny knew.

"I _need_ a gun, Pa."

His father threw his head back and laughed. But when he saw that Johnny was serious - standing still with a frown on his face, biting his lip - the big man squatted down to talk to him. "You need a gun, do you?"

"Yessir."

"Uh huh." Pa scratched his chin, deep in thought. "I've taught you the difference between wanting something and needing it, haven't I, Johnny?"

"Yes, but-."

"So what you mean is you _want_ a gun. Correct?"

Johnny looked at his father, meeting his gaze directly. "No. I _need_ one. Scott has one and-."

"Scott is ten years old, son, and when you're a little older you'll get a squirrel rifle. One just like your brother has." He stood up as if that was the end of the conversation, but Johnny wasn't about to let his father walk away without another try.

He planted his legs wide apart and just about shouted, "I need a gun!" His father's look of displeasure would have made many a man around the ranch quake in his boots, and although Johnny's knees trembled a little, he wasn't about to give an inch.

"Young man, if you don't improve your tone immediately, it's up to bed early, with no supper."

Johnny inhaled and exhaled a few times, looked down at the dusty tips of his little cowboy boots, then peeked up at his father. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth, but before he could speak, his father said sternly, "You think very carefully about what you're going to say before you speak, son."

Johnny shuffled from one foot to the other, but his father waited patiently. In an exaggeratedly calm tone, Johnny fixed his eyes on those of his father and said, "I. . . need. . . a gun."

This time his father frowned with concern. "You want to tell me why you need one?"

Johnny knew it was going to come to this. He'd have to say something and he wasn't practiced with lying. What's more, he didn't want to lie to anyone. Lying, he knew, was WRONG, and besides, the penalty of being found out would be no supper. Johnny didn't think for one minute that he'd get away with anything but telling the truth, but out here in the daylight, even he would have trouble swallowing the real reason why he needed a gun.

When the little boy didn't speak, but screwed up his face and squirmed around a bit, his father gave him a pat on the back. "Johnny, get inside if you've finished your chores."

"But, Pa!"

"We'll continue this later. I have work to do. You know why?"

Johnny had heard this question many a time before and it had become like a game between him and his father. "Because one day-."

"-one day the ranch will be-."

"-will be one third mine," Johnny finished up. He grinned. He liked it when he shared silly things with his Pa.

"That's right, and if we don't keep our noses to the grindstone, there won't be anything for me to give you and Scott when you're old enough to run this ranch." Murdoch smiled fondly at Johnny, but he soon turned his back on him and made for the barn.

The little boy knew he wouldn't see his father until the next morning. One of the women of the house always put the children to bed. Defeated, Johnny went into the hacienda and headed for the kitchen, dragging his feet most of the way.

...*... ...*...

The kitchen was a hive of activity, with the two women readying for the return of the men from a cattle drive. They bustled about, giving orders to the two young kitchen girls. One of the girls stirred the stewpot boiling on the stove while Maria, with flour up to her elbows, leaned into the rolling pin to level out some dough.

The other woman, Mrs. O, was busy cutting up meat and vegetables on the table. She smiled at Johnny when he came up to her and asked what she was doing. There were dishes and pots and utensils strewn over every countertop, and from the smell of it, some freshly baked cookies were ready to be removed from the big wall oven.

Scott rushed in, ducking between the two teenaged girls who were carrying jars of fruit from the pantry to the already over-laden table. The blond boy, tall for his age, grabbed a plate of food and accepted a glass of milk from Maria. He said, "Hi squirt," to Johnny and then left just as fast as he'd come in.

Maria shook her head. "That boy studies so much his eyes will be tired long before he's a man." She seemed to be scolding, but Johnny thought she sounded proud of Scott for doing so much studying. Johnny didn't mind reading if the book had pictures in it, but there were plenty of other things to do around the ranch that interested him a lot more than books did. Maria handed Johnny a plate of cookies and pushed him towards a chair. "Sit."

"His eyeballs are gonna fall out." Johnny bit into a gingery cookie and laughed at the image that came to mind of Scott's eyeballs dropping onto his empty plate.

"Don't you speak with your mouth full or you'll choke." Maria warned. "Coma su alimento lentamente. Usted crecerá hasta sea un muchacho grande."

Mrs. O rose and scraped the food she had diced up into a boiling pot, added spices to it, then bustled over to the oven and acted as if she owned the kitchen. Johnny was well aware that Maria considered this her territory, but both the women looked like they were too busy to have any time for bickering today.

"Johnny, come here," Mrs. O ordered.

Johnny grabbed a couple of cookies and shoved them in his pocket; a man never knew when he might need extra supplies.

Mrs. O asked the small boy to fetch some more flour from the pantry then smiled down at him when he returned to her side. Johnny thought her smile was beautiful and he liked her hair, which was the color of gold, just like his Pa had said once when he was stroking it. She used to look sad at times, and Pa always did his best to comfort her. Johnny figured she must be happier these days because Mrs. O had grown as fat as one of Mrs. Baldomero's sows that were kept in a big smelly pen behind the general store. As Mrs. O stirred the pot, she asked Johnny if he had any more chores to do.

"I did them all." She looked skeptical, so Johnny added, "I gave all the horses in the barn hay and helped Señor Cipriano water them and I scrubbed the buckets and I fed the rabbits and I. . ." He couldn't recall the rest so he smiled sweetly. "Trabajo duro, justo como mi papa."

Mrs. O cupped Johnny's chin in her hand, raising his small face so she could inspect it. She frowned a little as if she was weighing him up. "You, my boy, are becoming too much like your mother." Maria made a hushing sound from across the room, but Mrs. O made no sign she'd heard it.

Johnny asked a question he knew would elicit dark looks. It was worth a try, though. "Did you know my Mama?"

"I did indeed," Mrs. O replied. She ignored Maria's protests and waved a hand at her to tell her to keep quiet. "She was a lovely woman, with big brown eyes and long eyelashes that she batted at every rich rancher who passed her by." She smiled in a way that Johnny thought made her look like a weasel baring its teeth, and said softly, "But now she's somewhere far, far better. Somewhere peaceful. Do you know where that is, Johnny?"

There was something in the way the lady looked at him that made Johnny wonder if it was a trick question, but he piped up, "Sure I know where she is." Mrs. O raised her eyebrows and waited expectantly. Johnny smiled widely and said what he knew to be the right answer, because he'd heard Señor Cipriano and another man talking about Mama just the other day. "My Mama, she is in a place called Abrottle." He looked up at Maria and asked, "Is that near here?"

Maria choked and rushed over, demanding, "Where did you hear such a thing, mi niño? You put that right out of your mind." She made a fuss but Johnny couldn't figure out what he'd said wrong. Mrs. O thought it was amusing, Johnny could tell. The sound of her laughter reached his ears as Maria shepherded him out of the warm kitchen, saying it was time for his bath even as she sent dark looks over her shoulder at the blond woman.

Maria tutted as she pushed Johnny along the hall to the scullery with a firm hand on his back. She explained, "Your Mama, she is in Heaven, resting in the arms of God. You remember that, always."

Johnny didn't understand what all the fuss was about and he was confused about where his Mama was, but if Maria said she was in Heaven, then she must be there. Maybe he'd heard Cipriano wrong. Sometimes he really didn't understand grown-ups.

Maria called to the kitchen girls and ordered them to bring some jugs of warm water into the scullery, then she stood Johnny in a washtub and gave him a bath. The older lady hummed as she ran a washcloth down his small brown body, and in no time at all Johnny was enveloped in a fresh towel, scrubbed dry, then hustled up his room to get ready for bed.

They passed Scott's room where Johnny could see his older brother leaning over his desk writing something that looked very important down on a big pad of paper. He wondered if Scott ever had any fun now he was all grown up.

Johnny hated wearing a nightshirt, but as he'd had countless lectures about how he had to wear clothing at night as well as during the day, he put up with the offending garment. He'd carried his clothing upstairs and when he dumped the pants on the floor, he remembered the cookies. Hiding them under his pillow, he figured they might come in handy later on.

Maria did not know how to read, so she tucked Johnny into bed, despite his protestation that it was too early to sleep. After a hug and a warm kiss, she pulled the drapes shut and left him with a "Good night, little one."

Johnny did not want to be left alone, especially with the door closed and no candle alight, but just as he was about to get out of bed and run for the door, Scott came in.

Scott perched on the edge of the big bed and was easily cajoled into reading to his little brother. They had always slept in the same room until the previous week, when Scott's tutor had told Murdoch that the young man needed a room of his own so he could study seriously. Once Scott had finished reading the children's book aloud, he rose from the bed and headed for the door. Johnny didn't want him to go and asked for a glass of water - anything to delay being left alone.

Scott finally insisted he had to leave. "I have to finish one more chapter of my history book before I go to sleep, Johnny. You shut your eyes now."

"I can't. You have to stay with me."

"I have to go back to my own room, Johnny. Just lie back and you'll be asleep in no time."

Johnny sat up and pulled the covers up to his chest. "But. . . you don't understand."

Scott went back to the bed and asked patiently, "Tell me what's the matter, Johnny."

Looking sheepish, Johnny leaned forward and whispered, "There's a monster under my bed."

...*... ...*... ...*...


	2. Chapter 2

Fandom: Lancer  
Rating: PG  
Genre: family, gen, kidfic, AU, horror  
Warnings: none

Written: March 2008, 4400 words, 2 chapters

THE COOKIE MONSTER - CHAPTER 2

Of course Scott laughed, but not unkindly. He was mature in many ways for a ten-year-old, but not so old that he didn't remember being frightened by scary things in his room in the dark of night. "It won't come out if there's a light so I'll light this lamp for you. Just don't turn it up or Pa will see it and he won't like it. You know he says it's a waste of oil."

Eyes wide, Johnny nodded in agreement. He idolized his brother.

"Oh, and one more thing," Scott said without a smile. "Sometimes monsters like cookies." He pointed to the cookies that were peeking out from under Johnny's pillow. "It never hurts to try something once." Once Scott had bid Johnny good night and left, the small boy scooted down in his bed, pulling the covers up over his head. Although he was scared, he was also very sleepy from having been active since dawn and soon enough he was out like a light.

...*... ...*...

Johnny awoke with a start. He was sure he'd heard a noise. The lamp by his bedside emitted a dull glow, but apart from the menacing shadows playing across his walls, there was no sign of any movement. After a couple of tense minutes of waiting and listening as hard as he could, he jumped out of bed, opened his bedroom door, and dashed down the hall to Scott's room. The rest of the house was in darkness - it must be very late. Pa would be mad if he caught him out of bed. He'd get a whipping for sure.

Scott mumbled something in protest and turned over sleepily when Johnny climbed into bed with him. After a couple of minutes the older boy awoke enough to push his little brother out of the bed. "Get outta here," Scott moaned.

Johnny whined, "Nooo," but Scott even went so far as to throw back his covers and physically remove the boy from his room. "Go back to bed," Scott ordered in a whisper. "I'll tell Pa-."

The door closed in Johnny's face and he was left alone, out in the dark hallway. He was frightened. He had to pee. He needed a gun.

Quickly and quietly, Johnny padded down the hall and down the stairs, avoiding the squeaky board on the fourth step down, and ran through the dark house to the great room. The great room, large in the light of day, was an enormous, densely black vault at two in the morning. Johnny held his breath, navigating his way around the bulky furniture until he found Pa's huge desk. The bottom drawer, which was locked, held a handgun, but the key was in the middle drawer in a small wooden box. Johnny knew all this because he was five-going-on-six-in-just-two-weeks and a five-year-old notices such things.

The gun was very heavy and handling it was almost too intimidating for the small boy. But as he was about to return the gun to its safe haven, Johnny remembered his dread of the monster under his bed, and that was far greater than his fear of the revolver. And although the thought of his father, and what he'd do if he caught Johnny with a gun almost outweighed everything else, the danger the monster presented was far more immediate.

Johnny walked back to his room with more caution than he'd taken when leaving it. He moved very slowly past his father's doorway, and had a fright when he heard the old man's bedsprings squeak. Pa mumbled in his sleep, but then everything was quiet as a tomb once again. When Johnny arrived at his own room without awakening anyone, he slowly opened the door and peeped in to check for danger. It took a lot of gumption for Johnny to step over the threshold, but after a couple of minutes he did so.

The boy raised the borrowed gun in front of him as he very slowly stepped towards his bed. It shook some so he gripped it tighter. The lamp was casting a glow that seemed far brighter than earlier, but there was nothing bad to be seen anywhere in the room, which was some comfort. Johnny knew that scary things liked to lay in wait in the darkness under beds - he wasn't stupid - but it was so dark underneath the bed he couldn't see anything under there.

Suddenly, throwing caution to the wind, with the gun in hand, he ran and jumped up on the high mattress. As the mattress stopped bouncing, he heard a noise, and this time he had no doubt it was coming from under his bed. Right underneath where he was sitting. He remembered what Scott had told him, that monsters liked cookies. He didn't know how Scott knew that, but Scott knew a lot, which is why he was going away to boarding school real soon. So Johnny trusted his word.

Wishing he'd peed before he'd returned to his bedroom, Johnny squeezed his legs together hard and slowly reached under his pillow with his free hand. Very, very slowly, he leaned towards the edge of the mattress and dropped one spicy, sugar-coated, ginger cookie onto the floor. It tumbled down, hit the wood plank flooring and skittered almost out of sight under the bed. Johnny leaned back, took a deep breath and grasped the revolver with both hands.

There was a scuttling sound, something like twigs being blown across the town boardwalk during a dry spell.

Johnny panted with fear, and cautiously peered over the edge of his bed. He jerked back with a gasp. The cookie had gone! He swallowed hard and held the gun in his right hand. With his left, he withdrew the second - and last remaining - cookie from under the pillow. This time, after he dropped it on the floor, he leaned forward just enough so he could keep an eye on it. It fell several inches out into the open this time and was clearly visible.

He waited and waited, swaying a little when, despite the overwhelming fear of the monster under his bed, sleep beckoned. Johnny had no concept of how much time had passed. It was a lot of minutes though. His head grew heavy and his eyes didn't want to stay open. Just as he was about to lie down with the gun cradled in his arms to try to get some sleep, he saw a slight movement. Something. . . something was coming out from under his bed.

At first he thought it was a finger, but when it emerged into the glow cast by the bedside table's lamp, he identified it as a claw. It wasn't like anything he'd ever seen before. It wasn't a chicken or even an eagle's claw. He knew what they looked like. This was much, much bigger. Long and boney, the talon protruded from the dark shadows of its hiding place, reaching out until its four-inch black nail dug into the ginger cookie. Slowly it pulled the treat back into the dark shadows under Johnny's bed, the scraping sound loud in the stillness of the night.

Johnny never knew what possessed him to do what he did next. He could have remained in his bed, sure. He could have lain there quaking with fear. He could have screamed loud enough for everyone in the house to come running. But he did none of those things. Instead, he chose to do something that became his signature move in the years to come.

Johnny Madrid Lancer leaped off his bed in one bound and twisted in the air, cocking the .45 as he hit the ground several feet from his bed. He swiveled and aimed at the red glowing eyes and quickly pulled the trigger and shot the monster to Hell where it would never be able to scare him again. The sound was deafening and the small room filled with the smoky, acrid smell of gunpowder and burned cookies. Johnny was thrown backwards from the force of the blast and landed on his backside. Even though it was dark under the bed, from where he lay Johnny could clearly see a large shadowy figure lying there, dead as a doornail.

He was really hot and felt scared and powerful and like he was going to throw up, too.

In less than a minute, Johnny's room was overflowing with people. In rushed Murdoch, a revolver in one hand, a lamp in another, wearing a voluminous nightshirt and an extremely anxious expression; Mrs. O, clad in a nightgown that did nothing to diminish her size, her blue eyes round, her hand to her mouth in shock; Scott, a cowlick sticking straight up, and a look that fell somewhere between fright and a grin plastered across his face. He said, "You're going to get it now!"

Murdoch surveyed the room and at a glance assessed the situation. When two half-dressed vaqueros rushed to join them, guns at the ready, Murdoch told them everything was fine and ordered Mrs. O to take Scott back to bed.

"Go, just go, Angel," he said gruffly. "Everything is all right. The boy is unharmed." He closed the door after them and turned up the lamp a little. Then, with unnatural calm, the big man turned to Johnny and took the gun from him. He placed both his own handgun and that of the boy on the bedside table.

Murdoch turned back to his small son, who sat trembling on the bedroom floor with his legs splayed out in front of him. The father scooped the child up in his arms and hugged him to his chest. He could feel Johnny's heart going at a fast rate. His own heart still pounding madly from a dread unlike any he'd ever known. After several minutes, Murdoch put the boy down on the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress beside him. "Do you want to explain this to me?" His voice shook a little from the pent-up anger that was rising, but Murdoch knew that allowing it to escape was not an option.

Johnny could tell that Pa was very angry. Of course he was. But Johnny had already accepted that he would have to pay, and probably dearly, for disobeying his father. Suddenly, a strong feeling that he wanted to cry arose, but Johnny knew that big boys did not cry. He bit his lip, then said in a very small voice, "It was a cookie monster." Murdoch looked skeptical, so Johnny whispered, "Under the bed." He nodded to indicate the location of the dead monster, and he saw his father's eyes drop to the floor.

Murdoch got down on his hands and knees and peered under the bed. After a couple of long minutes, he rose. Reaching out with his big hands, Murdoch repositioned his small son so he was lying down with his head on the pillow, then he pulled the covers up to Johnny's chin. "We'll talk more about this tomorrow, John Lancer. Right now I want you to go to sleep. Understand?"

Johnny nodded, relieved not to have been scolded or whipped, though unsure of why his father was being so understanding. It was sure to be a short reprieve. "I need to pee," he said.

After the chamberpot had been used and returned to its cabinet, and a glass of water had been drunk, Johnny settled back onto his pillow with a sigh.

"I'll leave the lamp on, but just this once," Murdoch said firmly. He leaned over and kissed Johnny on the forehead, and the little arms wrapped around his father's big neck as the boy responded. After a few minutes, Murdoch peeled his son's arms away from his neck and laid him back down.

Murdoch picked up both of the guns, but after he stepped over the threshold, he turned back. He opened his mouth to say something, but apparently decided not to say whatever it was. He just stood there for a minute, thinking.

Johnny called his father back. "Pa?"

Murdoch half turned and looked in enquiringly, but did not go back inside his son's room. "Yes, son?"

"Was it a clean shot?"

"Yes, it was a fine shot, Johnny. Now go to sleep."

After his Pa had left, Johnny lay still for a while, but just as he was about to drop off, he pushed back his covers and leaned over the side of his bed once more. There, scarring the wide-planked wood floor was a gouge, but not from the bullet shot from Johnny's gun. It was a long, thin and very deep mark left by the claw of a now very dead cookie monster.

Johnny smiled with satisfaction and went to sleep to dream of a warm kitchen and plenty of sweet cookies on his plate.

...*... the end ...*...

Comments? Email gaikman at roadrunner dot com


End file.
